Thousands Attended Protest to Exploit Racial Tensions In US – It Was Secretly Organized by Russians

Thousands of protesters congregated in New York City following the presidential election last year for a demonstration against then-President-elect Donald Trump.

What they didn’t realize, however, was that the march had been organized by Russian operatives seeking to use racial tension in America to sow division and discord.

The operatives used a Facebook page called BlackMattersUS to organize the protest for Nov. 12, 2016.

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Over 33,000 Facebook users wound up registering for the event, while roughly 16,000 actually attended it, including some well known names like that of Michael Moore, who is known for his far-left filmmaking.

Moore “headlined” the march, according to The Daily Wire, and even filmed the event for his documentary “Michael Moore in Trumpland.”

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“The BlackMattersUS-organized rally took advantage of outrage among groups on the left following President Trump’s victory on Nov. 8 to galvanize support for its event,” The Hill reported this week.

“The group’s protest was the fourth consecutive anti-Trump rally in New York following election night, and one of many across the country.”

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The BlackMattersUS Facebook page was created by the Internet Research Agency, a Russian firm that uses social media to influence public opinion on foreign nations on behalf of the Russian government.

The Hill noted the Internet Research Agency purchased 3,000 political ads and operated 470 accounts on Facebook during and after the 2016 election.

The BlackLivesUS page in particular also attempted to organize demonstrations in Charlotte, North Carolina, last year to protest the shooting of Keith Lamont Scott, a black suspect fatally shot by police on Sept. 2, 2016.

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Though local prosecutors declined to prosecute the black officer who shot Scott, claiming they were “entirely convinced” he had been “lawful in using deadly force,” as reported last year by NPR, Russian operatives hoped to gin up animosity in minority communities against what some perceive to be America’s racially unjust criminal justice system.

“(A)bout 300, 400 people showed up,” Conrad James, one of the black activists invited by BlackMattersUS to speak at the event, told NPR. “It didn’t seem like anything out of the ordinary. To me, it was just being presented as a speaking engagement.”